Plants in danger of missing CRC deadlines, warns npower 08 July 2010

Energy firm npower has issued a warning to plant managers that they risk facing financial and reputational penalties unless they act fast to meet the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) deadlines.

The alert comes as the latest Environment Agency figures reveal that just 10% of full participants have registered for the scheme at the half way point of the six month registration window.

Those that are still to register are also now at significant risk of missing out on the opportunity to disaggregate, which requires initial registration to be completed by 31 July – in just three weeks time.

CRC disaggregation allows companies with several subsidiaries to register them as separate entities, so that one is not unduly influenced by another.

The Environment Agency has already extended the deadline for disaggregation by one month in response to business concerns, but Dave Lewis, head of business energy services at npower, believes many will still face difficulties.

"Disaggregation could be a potentially valuable route for many businesses and to simply dismiss it as an administrative task could see many miss out," advises Lewis.

"CRC participation is typically established at a group level, but being able to register companies separately could make collating data and submitting ongoing evidence packs simpler," he adds.

Lewis also warns that the slow rate of registration so far indicates that many organisations may not be tracking their energy use from 1 April this year in preparation for their year-end footprint report. "The longer organisations take to track this, the more challenging the task will become," he says.

The result could well be fines for late registration. Any participant that misses the final registration deadline of 30 September will incur an immediate fine of £5,000, plus an additional £500 per working day past the deadline, up to a maximum of 80 days. Non-compliance will also be published.

"Compiling all the data needed to register for CRC is no small task and, while many are working hard to bring this together, time is running out," says Lewis.

Brian Tinham

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